I have always had a sense of respect towards Chinese people and culture. I think they are wise people plenty of knowledge and wisdom. When I was about 8 years old I used to think of China as a different world, and I still think it is very different from the western world. I must recognize that sometimes one of the stereotypes that comes to my head when thinking of Chinese is that they are dirty people (Chinese friends have told me so, and I have seen it). And maybe it is true for some people, but not all of them. I also think that they are everywhere and that some of them are not open to anther cultures.
I guess that Chinese or in this particular case maybe Easterners may think of us westerners as crazy libertines, because our culture is very open to everything (ideas, people, political ideologies, stereotypes etc.).
Engineering cultures between China and the Western hemisphere may be pretty much the same, because physics, mathematics, and science in general do not vary between different places all over the world. However, the way engineering is seen and taught in China may have a lot to do with their modern and ancient traditional concepts such as harmony. Maybe in China being an engineer can be a matter of social status, and engineers in there may have a high status, not really wealthy but comfortable.
If I ever go to China to study I guess I will previously study the culture, because I have studied a little Mandarin before, and I know that some words that we share do not really have the same meaning for them. Culture may also be helpful in order to know how to behave when talking or interacting with native chinese.
It seems that a blog post to talk only about China is also very short. Much was still left to say...
Daniel, I love this blog post of yours. I find it interesting, the way you have expressed yourself.
ReplyDeleteEven I think the same as you do. You say that Chinese are dirty people(as your Chinese friends told you). I do not agree to this. As far as I know and also all that I have read about Chinese people, I'm pretty sure that Chinese are into socializing. There might be some exceptions though.
I too wanna visit China and learn more about their culture. :)
(engr 103)
I also used to consider China a whole separate world. With all of the characters in their alphabet, I did not understand how they teach children so I automatically assumed they were born very intelligent. But after reading the article, one can see that wisdom comes from the many teachings of Confucius.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your idea of what Asians think of Americans. I believe it is a common stereotype of the United States.
Studying in China or any other country actually will require mass amounts of learning the culture and making sure we know how other countries see problems.